|
Posted by Leo Breebaart on June 23, 2005, 1:49 pm
Please log in for more thread options
Hi all,
I have written an XHTML syntax checker, called 'Tidybot'. It is
built on top of the well-known "HTML Tidy" library.
I wrote it because I needed some very specific functionality I
couldn't easily find elsewhere. Now that it exists, I'd like to
make it available to the world, just in case others find it
useful, too.
What it does:
- Traverses one or more source directories on your hard disk
recursively, and runs all .html/.htm files it finds through
TidyLib, collecting all warnings and errors it encounters
and presenting them nicely in an XHTML report.
- You can specify files/directories to exclude from the checks,
you can specify warnings/errors to suppress in the generated
report, and you can specify 'key:value' options to pass
directly to the underlying Tidy engine. You can also tell the
generated report to use a different CSS stylesheet if you want
it to have your own look & feel.
- Comes in both a command-line version (for easy automated
scheduling) and a (functionally equivalent, but more
user-friendly) GUI version.
- Is cross-platform, running on both Unix/Linux and MS Windows
(and I daresay it will run on MacOS as well -- certainly the
command-line version should -- but I haven't been able to test
that). A one-file Installer application is available for
Windows. (On Unix, you will also need to install a number of
prerequisites.)
What it (by design) doesn't do:
- No conversion or editing of files -- it just checks files,
helping you to *keep* things tidy, rather than tidying them for
you.
- Doesn't get pages from a web server -- only static pages
available on the local file system are supported.
What I am looking for:
- People willing to give Tidybot 1.5b2 (the current beta version)
a run on their system, and then send me test reports and
feedback as detailed as they have the time and inclination for.
To clarify: Tidybot may have a rather limited functionality (when
compared to what Tidy is capable of) but it is not a quick hack,
and before I officially release it to the world I really want to
make sure it runs as flawlessly as possible. This is why all
feedback is welcome.
The Tidybot Home Page is:
<http://www.kronto.org/tidybot/>
and you can see daily updated report pages in action at:
<http://library.lspace.org/tidybot/>
Tidybot and its source code are released as free software under
the MIT License.
Many thanks in advance to anybody willing to help me out with
this.
--
|
|
Posted by Andy Dingley on June 23, 2005, 6:03 pm
Please log in for more thread options
>I have written an XHTML syntax checker, called 'Tidybot'. It is
>built on top of the well-known "HTML Tidy" library.
Poor choice, IMHO. Tidy is built on HTML and isn't a good basis for an
XML tool. What's its behaviour depending on the content-type returned ?
Does it correctly handle XHTML _as_XML_ ?
|
|
Posted by Leo Breebaart on June 23, 2005, 5:42 pm
Please log in for more thread options
>
> >I have written an XHTML syntax checker, called 'Tidybot'. It is
> >built on top of the well-known "HTML Tidy" library.
>
> Poor choice, IMHO.
Entirely possible -- as I said, I was hesitant about going public
with this utility, because I initially felt it was "just" a
wrapper around a tool that wasn't really created to be an XHTML
validator in the first place.
On the other hand, the TidyLib was *there*, I could actually use
it without too much hassle, and the result has certainly served
its purpose: I run our files through it, it flags things as
errors or warnings, I fix those, our XHTML files become neater
(and the real validators agree with that).
This is a net win for us any which way I look at it.
> Tidy is built on HTML and isn't a good basis for an XML tool.
> What's its behaviour depending on the content-type returned ?
I'm not sure I understand your question. Tidy (and Tidybot) work
on local files, not on HTML pages retrieved from a server, so
there is no content-type "returned" as I understand the phrase.
Also I would never claim that Tidybot was an XML tool -- I see it
more as a kind of 'lint' for XHTML files. Nothing more, nothing
less.
> Does it correctly handle XHTML _as_XML_ ?
I think specifying the "input-xml:yes" to the underlying TidyLib
takes care of that, yes, but perhaps you can give me a specific
example of a situation that might not be handled correctly?
--
|
|
Posted by Andy Dingley on June 23, 2005, 11:35 pm
Please log in for more thread options
>> Does it correctly handle XHTML _as_XML_ ?
>
>I think specifying the "input-xml:yes" to the underlying TidyLib
>takes care of that, yes, but perhaps you can give me a specific
>example of a situation that might not be handled correctly?
Namespacing wasn't supported last time I looked. As this is one of the
few reasons for going XML over HTML, that's significant IMHO.
|
|
Posted by Leo Breebaart on June 25, 2005, 11:21 am
Please log in for more thread options
>
> >> Does it correctly handle XHTML _as_XML_ ?
> >
> >I think specifying the "input-xml:yes" to the underlying
> >TidyLib takes care of that, yes, but perhaps you can give me a
> >specific example of a situation that might not be handled
> >correctly?
>
> Namespacing wasn't supported last time I looked. As this is one
> of the few reasons for going XML over HTML, that's significant
> IMHO.
If TidyLib does not support XML namespaces, than obviously
Tidybot won't support it either.
I can't shake the feeling that you're finding fault with Tidybot
for it not being the utility you feel it ought to be, rather than
for any deficiency in what it actually is.
I've already described the scenario in which I find Tidybot
helpful to have around, and I am really not trying to make any
claims beyond that.
--
|
| Similar Threads | Posted | | [ANN] Beta test of the W3C Markup Validator (0.7.0 beta 1) | July 12, 2005, 10:27 pm |
| best free link checker? | May 23, 2005, 3:15 am |
| Opinions sought on navbar text | January 11, 2008, 10:07 pm |
| MSIE 7 Beta 1 | July 30, 2005, 10:34 am |
| fileTracker Beta | September 26, 2006, 9:38 pm |
| Cannot Say Enough Good Things About MSN Search (Beta) Engine | November 18, 2004, 8:55 am |
| Beta Test Software Access Control for your PC | April 12, 2005, 2:47 am |
| Odd Syntax | July 14, 2004, 8:19 pm |
| css syntax | February 10, 2006, 4:45 pm |
| were does this HTML syntax come from? | November 30, 2004, 10:19 am |
|
XML Sitemap